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Magazine
Theatre is most un-wow
K.SRILATA
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Playwright and director Ramu Ramanathan on his theatrical vision and future projects in an exclusive e-mail interview.
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We have to understand that it takes a long time to develop a language and the technical proficiency to write a play like a Satish Alekar or perform like a Naseeruddin Shah. You can’t do it overnight.
PHOTO: K.V. SRINIVASAN
Shakespeare belongs to the world: From Ramu Ramanathan’s “Shakespeare and She”.
In “Shakespeare and She”, scripted and directed by you, Shakespeare becomes a peg on which you hang the concerns of characters in 21st century Mumbai. What inspired the play?
There’s a line in the play, which says 16th Century London is equal to21st Century Mumbai. And then Aisha (a character in the play) says: “The clamour, the clutter. The endless jostling. Busy bustis and makeshift trade shops. The stench and the shit. No open spaces. Immigrants and traders and their labourers, arriving, everyday. Infectious maladies. Mosquito bites, TB, Pneumonia, Encephalitis, Maladies, Infections, EXHAUSTION.”
This is the premise of the play. I did two sets of workshops. One with students of Industrial Design Centre @ IIT and the other with Kamala Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture. The brief was simple. Go discover Shakespearean characters on the streets of Mumbai. Nothing was to be manufactured or faked. The images (approximately thousands) triggered the text.
There is a take on the academic fixing of textual meanings which is then contrasted with Aisha’s own reading of the play as speaking to the Mumbai of her times. How important is it to take Shakespeare outside the “Eng. Lit.” classroom, to allow it that fluidity, which many would find threatening?
Shakespeare belongs to the world and like the Mahabharata and Ramayana, his plays are mythologies that can be told and retold, any which way.
You said somewhere that you wrote the play for Ahlam Khan, who played the role of Insomnia. Was that how it really came into existence?
Yes. Ahlam is a very dear friend. Years ago, we did a play. A staged rendition of Vaikom Mohammed Basheer’s masterly novella Me Grandad And An Elephant in which she played Kunjupattuma. That was a very special play. Since I knew I was writing the play for Ahlam, it was a question of penning a piece which utilised her abundant reservoir of talent. Ahlam is the hub of the play.
The play revolves around the lives of women, some of whom are part of a group. The men are always off-stage, Aisha’s father and brother, Insomnia’s father and her numerous lovers. Could you tell me a little about that?
The play is about two women, Aisha and Insomnia, in today’s India. They are dissimilar yet share a common history. This is something I have seen first hand. Two women, close friends, met after decades at The Tata Cancer Hospital in Bandra. There was silence. Many years had lapsed; and there was very little which they knew about each other.
Suddenly, one said “Fie O Fie, such deception” (a line from Shakespeare); and then they got talking. Shakespeare unlocked their memories. It was special.
That meeting stayed with me. “Shakespeare and She” is about the impossible hurdles for women who want to lead a dignified life in our country.
When was the play written and how long did it take to write?
The play was written in January 2008. It took me a week. My writing was determined by the Hamara Shakespeare dates sent to me by Ranvir Shah. A deadline, always, helps me.
What about the process of directing? Did it help that you had written the play?
Context is everything. One of the things that emerges in a good rehearsal is the ability to use the constraints as a discipline however brutal that seems.
We have to understand that it takes a long time to develop a language and the technical proficiency to write a play like a Satish Alekar or perform like a Naseeruddin Shah. You can’t do it overnight. It takes years.
No one drops out of a tree, one day, and starts to stage brilliant productions. Other than context, we kept two things in mind: Courage and Contamination. The courage to be brave and try something new and the sensitivity not to be contaminated by the hegemony of today’s dulling cultures.
Do you think audiences are coming back to theatre?
Young people are the future of theatre. Young people are the ONLY hope. This is a generation that watches quality world cinema on their DVD players at home.
They have realised that Indian documentaries and short films and Vishal Bharadwaj are Wow. They read Amitava Ghosh and visit Atul and Anju Dodiya’s art show and go ‘Wow, Wow’.
And by that quantum they want Indian theatre to be ‘Wow Wow Wow’. But that’s not happening. Let’s face it, at the moment, Indian theatre is most Un-Wow. It is a matter of serious concern.
What factors according to you are limiting the vision of our theatre today?
Theatre policy. Theatrewallahs have been infantilised by the profession. There’s a professional organisation in all countries that runs the theatre movement.
Institutes in India like the NSD or the Lalit Kala Akademi do the same. They protect their turf and are like an over-protective parent. NSD doles out subsidies to mediocre ex-students. This overprotection marginalises one in the creative culture. Ideally you have to build up credibility before the support comes to you.
Tell me about your other work, your evolution as a playwright and director, what that takes.
I am the editor of PT Notes, a monthly theatre newsletter produced by Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai. I have perhaps penned more plays than I should have. These include “Jazz”, “Cotton 56 Polyester 84”, “Three Ladies of Ibsen”, “Shanti, Shanti”, “It’s a War”, “Mahadevbhai” and “Collaborators” (which bagged the BBC Radio Playwriting Regional Award in 2003).
I have also written and directed children’s plays. My best work has been with young people — university students and non-theatre persons. My collaboration with a group of architect students resulted in three plays and one delightfully wicked piece called “PM @ 3 pm”.
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